Windoze XP Viruses, again

[Shaft109]

Hi all I normally use my mac for all things computing. :)

Recently I had to sort out my dad's PC 'cos it was running slow. After using Symantec virus search, Spybot and Adaware to find viruses etc, I removed them all. (This was about 6 months ago.) Since then every month it keeps getting infected with 4-5 a month.

Yes it has a firewall and is kept up to date, as is the antivirus and the automatic updates - so why does it keep getting infected? Is this normal?

If so i'm going to stick to Apple!!

cheers for any pointers, Shaft.

[OneWorld22]

There are a load of viruses that can easily sneak in beneath a firewall

Spyfalcon is one, I had that 5 times! the only true way of doing it is going to the Sys32 folder and viewing the icons that were least modified and going through each file one by one...Copy the file name and simply paste iot into google and one of the many sites will come back telling you what it is, if it's dangerous etc etc

Then you may have to go through the registry...You may also need a load of tools you can download which will tell you how to do it by booting in SAFE mode and running various programs.

I myself and now happily on a Mac too!!

[Saab Dastard]

Shaft,

There is a mighty big difference between viruses and malware. They are not synonymous and the detection programs are not interchangeable.

Viruses are (mostly) detected by an anti-virus program, malware may be detected by programs such as adaware / spybot.

Bear in mind that "malware" covers a very broad spectrum, from tracking cookies to key-loggers.

What is it that keeps being detected? It would be normal to have tracking cookies detected every time you run adaware, unless a cookie blocker is running.

SD

[Avtrician]

There are quite a few viri (viruss"") that come in just by opening a web page using IE, my son does it all the time. Mozilla doesnt draw them in, so consider changing browsers as well as other preventitive measures.

[Conan the Librarian]

If the A/V is updated, do you set it to run by itself a few times a week? That helps keep on top of things, but also -Windows Defender is free and is a good suite of utilities for the automatic removal of Malware, Adware, etc. etc. Has many other useful little titbits too.

I got caught out last week, by a reported virus which wasn't going to move. Thing is that I knew the file that it was in and that was six months old. Norton's latest virus definitions had only just picked it up along with my heartrate. However, it just does illustrate, that you have to keep plugging away at the issue and that sometimes the truism that "No news is good news" might have to be modified a bit.

Conan